First impressions matter, and they matter even more at your help desk. A customer that calls for support has already been having trouble, and a bad experience with a call is one of the fastest ways to get them to abandon your company altogether. But finding a way to give every customer the attention they need is hard, and it can get downright impossible if you’re still making basic help desk mistakes. Here are some of the biggest errors that beginners make in support calls—and how you can avoid them.
1. Never Shutting Up
First of all, make sure that you’re listening as much as you’re talking. While this is valuable advice for almost any relationship, it’s especially relevant on support calls. Customers do not appreciate it when they think their voice isn’t being heard, and nobody likes being interrupted or talked over. Plus, callers tend to become more cooperative after they’ve had a chance to vent, and it gives you as the support staff a better understanding of what exactly the problem is. This valuable information can sometimes help resolve the issue faster.
2. Reading Your Lines
Similarly, don’t get hung up on the script. Scripts are fine for training, but callers can tell when you’re reciting lines rather than talking to them. They think you’re not listening to them, and they don’t like it. If you’re willing to be a little more flexible, it helps establish trust, improves communication, and encourages the client to follow your instructions.
3. Taking Your Time
Do not make your customers wait for too long. They stop believing “Your call is important to us” the thirtieth time they hear it. If the wait doesn’t make them hang up, then they tend to be even more irritable when you finally get around to them. If you don’t have enough staff to ensure reasonable waits, then try adding call-backs so that nobody has to waste their time.
4. Playing the Blame Game
Nobody likes angry callers, but trying to blame someone else for the problem doesn’t help anything. If you resort to pointing fingers, then you only upset the caller more while delaying resolution of the issue. The problem probably isn’t your fault, but taking responsibility will go a long way towards building relationships.
5. Switching Channels and Starting Over
Try to avoid making your customer to switch channels, and especially do not force them to start over if they do. Modern consumers expect the same level of service no matter how they contact you, be it by phone, live chat, social media or over email. While it won’t be feasible to resolve every problem on every channel, you should make switching from one to another easy. Jumping from email to phone is annoying, and starting from square one again is a terrible experience. Cloud help desk solutions are one way to help mitigate this.
6. Faking It
Finally, be willing to admit when you don’t know. Be honest instead of trying to muddle your way through and hoping you stumble on the answer. The key to pulling this off is follow-up: tell the customer you’ll find out for them, and then go get the answer as soon as possible. Once you’ve found a solution, call back. Forgetting to respond is an easy way to lose the client.
Your customers might not always be right, but if you treat them wrong they’ll stop being your customers. These tips can help make support calls a better experience for everyone.
